A week used to be a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson once noted. Nowadays 24 hours is an eternity. I thought Mrs May's deal was badly received on Tuesday but within hours there was speculation she was to be forced out immediately. During her statement to the House after PMQs so few Tory MPs bothered to turn up she looked like the junior minister for thumb twiddling making a routine statement about paper clips.
Lewis Goodall at Sky Tweeted this at 2:10pm:
There are more opposition MPs in the chamber listening to May right now than Tories. pic.twitter.com/j8c9ZNDwFS— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 22, 2019
Her own side was mainly absent because they were plotting the PM's downfall prior to a meeting of the 1922 Committee. A meeting which later appeared to have failed to agree on changing the rules about holding another vote of confidence. It was also claimed cabinet ministers were queuing up to tell her that time was up - she apparently refused to meet them, being too busy circling the wagons.
However, Theresa May is widely expected to be gone as Tory leader by the weekend whatever happens.
The European elections take place today (and I hope you don't forget to vote - for the remain party of your choice of course) with Farage set to do very well, let's be honest. But I pray he doesn't do as well as the polls suggest. We can only hope. Unfortunately, the Conservatives are not helping themselves. As a special strategy to ensure they cripple their own chances, the Tories are descending into an acrimonious civil war.
The party is beginning to eat itself. The 1922 Committee is attacked for being too weak while Owen Paterson accuses the cabinet of being 'complicit' in the Brexit fiasco (HERE). He writes as if we were all under the impression that Brexit was nothing to do with the Tory government. He is obviously playing down his own role quite a bit - and who can blame him? Meanwhile, the membership attacks the prime minister and MPs attack each other.
There is not just one faction against another but multiple factions, parties within parties, and individuals against individuals, all vehemently hating the others. Brexit has opened up fissures like no other policy, in every direction and as far as the eye can see.
The broad church has been made so broad by Brexit that the beams are creaking and about to collapse. On one side are the pro Europeans like Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve and on the other men like Bill Cash, John Redwood and Steve Baker. It does not seem possible to reconcile Conservative MPs to any single outcome. It will surely break up very soon.
Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House resigned late last night (HERE), thereby raising the cabinet's collective IQ by a few points. Leadson became the 36th minister to resign under her exceedingly short premiership. At least she will go out with some sort of record although hardly one to be proud of.
Donald Tusk warned the government not to waste the extension to October 31st that the EU granted in April, since when we have done nothing but waste time. The next few weeks will be taken up with a Tory leadership election, the second since the referendum, making Brexit look even more like an internal Conservative policy argument that has got totally out of control and is threatening to bring the EU down.
Tory MPs still insist they won't go for a second referendum. They prefer to continue with the present parliamentary deadlock, unable to resolve the Brexit paradox but stubbornly refusing to put it to those who can, the British people. Brexiteers cannot get the Brexit they want and fear a second vote will lose them what they've got so far, like monkeys with their hands in the cookie jar. The internal arguments are now so all consuming that the electorate are all but forgotten.
The Withdrawal Agreement Bill is to be published tomorrow amidst doubt that it will actually ever be put to MPs, in its present form. To lose would mean it cannot come back for a second attempt in this parliamentary session so putting it to MPs carries big risks. Apparently, some Brexiteers think a version of it can be passed - eventually - with the bits they don't like taken out. This might get it through parliament but ensure it won't be acceptable to the EU.
Peter Foster, The Telegraph's Europe editor, in a longish Twitter thread (HERE) yesterday summed things up perfectly:
"Every single product of these negotiations over a three-year period is delivered in London & Westminster stillborn. However artfully constructed, the product of compromise always pales against the unalloyed visions set out by the Rees Moggs and the Farages of this world
This is not, in itself, that suprising. But what IS surprising is that the repeated sequence of failure and disappointment has not apparently taught anyone, anything On the negotiations side, Cameron/May..and soon to be Boris/Raab etc have never managed expectations.
Indeed they cling to power (or seek to acquire it) but hopelessly inflating expectations, knowing surely that they cannot be delivered
They do this, knowing knowing that in the end those setting the impossible bar (on ending free movement, on a fantasy clean-break Brexit) won't be swayed by their hard-won compromises. Because they never intended to be. The bar was never set at a height to be cleared.
Essentially, the nation is run by political crackheads - they live day to day, craving for the next survival fix that keeps them alive....even as it kills them".
Finally, on a couple or related issues:
Following my post yesterday about Andrea Jenkyns and the WTO, I see North Korea is the only country on earth which trades with the EU solely on WTO rules and they only do it because the secretive, authoritarian pariah state cannot get anything better. Brexiteers are now seeking the same status as a deliberate policy objective. It is totally insane.
And finally, finally on a lighter note, in what will surely rank alongside other memorable headlines in The Sun, yesterday's effort about Nigel Farage's bus tour in Kent was a beauty:
"Nigel Farage ‘trapped on Brexit bus due to people armed with milkshakes'" (HERE)
What have we come to? I understand police later established the milkshakes were primed and loaded with the safety catches off and could have caused serious staining of Mr Farage's suit. The public were warned not to approach the men.
Pity we can't say the same for Farage, eh?
